Tuesday, May 15, 2018

If you make a deal with the president of China and if he
keeps end of the bargain, you are obliged to keep yours… pretty much, no matter
what he asks in return. Considering how important it is to denuclearize North Korea... Xi's requests will obviously not be small.

I have been speculating about the possibility that the Trump
administration change in policy toward Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE has
something to do with Xi Jinping’s highly effective—as of now—intervention with
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Now, more people are coming around to this view, while
simultaneously suggesting that the intervention in the ZTE affair was wrong. As
I said, once you enter into a deal you commit to return whatever favor is asked.
If Trump had not acceded the negotiation with North Korea would have probably
run aground.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, James Freeman considers
the ZTE situation. Then, at the close of his column, he remarks:

This
column asked a senior administration official if Mr. Trump’s proposed ZTE
relief will come in return for China applying extreme pressure to North Korean
dictator Kim Jong Un. The reply: “Perhaps.”

Thanks, I was beginning to think I was the only person who grasped what was going on here. Trump warned Xi that favorable trade deals were contingent on China bringing N. Korea to heel. It appears that they did. So, one hand washes the other.

The media establishment pretends to be flummoxed by the ZTE effort only in as much as they'd like to convince Trump supporters that he broke his promise to get tough on China.